Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/642

634 and laid her head upon his bosom, sobbing repentantly.

“You would bear with me, Lionel, if you knew the pain I have here”—touching her chest. “I am sick and ill with fright.”

He did not answer that he did bear with her, bear with her most patiently—as he might have done. He only placed his arm round her that she might feel its shelter; and, with his gentle fingers, pushed the golden curls away from her cheeks, for her tears were wetting them.

She went into her sister’s house alone. She preferred to do so. The carriage took Lionel on to Deerham Court. He dismissed it when he alighted; ordering Wigham back to Miss West’s, to await the pleasure of his mistress.

Lionel had, probably, obeyed the summons sooner than was expected by Lady Verner and Decima; sooner, perhaps, than they deemed he could have obeyed it. Neither of them was in the breakfast-room: no one was there but Lucy Tempest.

By the very way in which she looked at him, the flushed cheeks, the eager eyes, he saw that the tidings had reached her. She timidly held out her hand to him, her anxious gaze meeting his. Whatever may have been the depth of feeling entertained for him, Lucy was too single-minded not to express all she felt of sympathy.

“Is it true?” were her first whispered words, offering no other salutation.

“Is what true, Lucy?” he asked. “How am I to know what you mean?”

They stood looking at each other. Lionel waiting for her to speak; she, hesitating. Until Lionel was perfectly certain that she alluded to that particular report, he would not speak of it. Lucy moved a few steps from him, and stood nervously playing with the ends of her waist-band, the soft colour rising deeper in her cheeks.

“I do not like to tell you,” she said, simply. “It would not be a pleasant thing for you to hear, if it be not true.”

“And still less pleasant for me, if it be true,” he replied, the words bringing him conviction that the rumour they had heard was no other. “I fear it is true, Lucy.”

“That—some one—has come back?”

“Some one who was supposed to be dead.”

The avowal seemed to take from her all hope. Her hands fell listlessly by her side, and the tears rose to her eyes.

“I am so sorry!” she breathed. “I am so sorry for you, and for—for—”

“My wife. Is that what you were going to say?”

“Yes, it is. I did not like much to say it. I am truly grieved. I wish I could have helped it!”

“Ah! you are not a fairy with an all-powerful wand yet, Lucy, as we read of in children’s books. It is a terrible blow, for her and for me. Do you know how the rumour reached my mother?”

“I think it was through the servants. Some of them heard it, and old Catherine told her. Lady Verner has been like any one wild: but for Decima, she would have started—”

Lucy’s voice died away. Gliding in at the door, with a white face and drawn-back lips, was Lady Verner. She caught hold of Lionel, her eyes searching his countenance for the confirmation of her fears, or their contradiction. Lionel bent his face on hers.

“It is true, mother. Be brave for my sake.”

With a wailing cry she sat down on the sofa, drawing him beside her. Decima entered and stood before them, her hands clasped in pain.

She, Lady Verner, made him tell her all the particulars: all he knew, all he feared.

“How does Sibylla meet it?” was her first question when she had listened to the end.

“Not very well,” he answered, after a momentary hesitation. “Who could meet it well?”

“Lionel, it is a judgment upon her. She—”

Lionel started up, his brow flushing.

“I beg your pardon, mother. You forget that you are speaking of my wife. She is my wife,” he more calmly added, “until she shall have been proved not to be.”

No. Whatever may have been Sibylla’s conduct to him personally, neither before her face nor behind her back, would Lionel forget one jot of the respect due to her. Or suffer another to forget it; although that other should be his mother.

“What shall you do with her, Lionel?”

“Do with her?” he repeated, not understanding how to take the question.

“When the man makes himself known?”

“I am content to leave that to the time,” replied Lionel, in a tone that debarred further mention.

“I knew no good would come of it,” resumed Lady Verner, persistent in expressing her opinion. “But for the wiles of that girl you might have married happily, might have married Mary Elmsley.”

“Mother, there is trouble enough upon us just now without introducing old vexations,” rejoined Lionel. “I have told you, before, that had I never set eyes upon Sibylla after she married Frederick Massingbird, Mary Elmsley would not have been my wife.”

“If he comes back, he comes back to Verner’s Pride?” pursued Lady Verner, in a low tone, breaking the pause which had ensued.

“Yes. Verner’s Pride is his.”

“And what shall you do? Turned, like a beggar, out on the face of the earth?”

Like a beggar? Ay, far more like a beggar than Lady Verner, in her worst apprehension, could picture.

“I must make my way on the earth as I best can,” he replied in answer. “I shall leave Europe. Probably for India. I may find some means, through my late father’s friends, of getting my bread there.”

Lady Verner appeared to appreciate the motive which no doubt dictated the suggested course. She did not attempt to controvert it; she only wrung her hands in passionate wailing.

“Oh, that you had not married her! that you had not subjected yourself to this dreadful blight!”

Lionel rose. There were limits of endurance even for his aching heart. Reproaches in a